Anjani Sharma started Minds Without B0rders in 2020.
Anjani Sharma has a big heart and a dream to make the world a better place for young people.
17 year old senior at West Shore Junior/Senior. The high school runs Minds Without B0rders, a youth-led nonprofit focused on destigmatizing mental health. She advocates for LGBTQ rights and gun reform. Here in Brevard, she chairs the High School Democratic Asian American Caucus. Earlier this month, she helped organize a rally to protest the book ban in Brevard Public Schools as more and more books were removed from district libraries.
And her efforts have not gone unnoticed. Earlier this month, Anjani was named a 2024 Prudential Emerging Visionary in recognition of her work as founder and executive director of Mind Without Borders.
As one of 25 recipients nationwide, she will receive a $5,000 prize donated by Prudential Financial to a nonprofit organization and a three-day coaching summit in April with Prudential employees. will receive an all-expenses-paid trip.
What drives her? The community she has impacted, she said.
“I’ve always only cared about these issues,” she said. “While some of these issues may not directly impact me as a person, I have seen the impact that being mindful of these issues has on those around me. ”
Minds Without B0rders: From blogs to international organizations
Anjani’s organization, Minds without B0rders, which has a zero in its name to symbolize that no student is left without mental health resources, started as a blog. She currently has more than 2,500 members in the United States and 18 other countries.
“I never imagined this would be something more than just me,” Anjani said.
The idea for Minds Without B0rders first germinated in 2019 when Anjani traveled to India, where her family is from. There, her cousin told her about her friend who had died by suicide. It was a highly stigmatized topic, she said.
That idea grew even more in 2020 as I watched my colleagues discuss mental health on social media during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and through remote teaching.
“When people talk about their struggles, it looks a little different than when they talk about physical health concerns, and that shouldn’t be the case,” Anjani said. “Given the ever-changing political landscape and schools that we face today and a lot of the struggles with these kinds of weights that we have to take on, there just isn’t enough focus on that. I don’t think it was.”
Anjani’s goal is to make a difference – to encourage students to talk as freely about their mental health as they do about their physical health.
This was an initiative she first worked with students around Florida and then across the United States.
Since the organization’s founding, group members have spoken at school board and city council meetings, raised funds for awareness events and mental health research, hosted panels with mental health experts, and provided guidance to students. We have provided it.
This year, they traveled to the state capitals of Florida and Alabama to speak with legislators about mental health and offer their perspectives on specific bills.
Anjani spoke in Tallahassee about HB1, filed by Republican Rep. Tyler Sirois of Merritt Island, which would ban social media use by anyone under 16. Meanwhile, Sirois said he was concerned that social media was contributing to bullying and mental health issues. , Anjani explained how her organization uses social media to spread awareness and connect with youth.
“As an organization, we recognize the relevance,” she said, referring to Sirois’ concerns. “But we also wanted to make sure that our voices were heard when it came to mental health and how[this bill]wasn’t the best thing because we were able to build a community of mental health advocates. ) provided resources, but only through social media.”
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Other activities
Outside of Minds Without B0rders, Anjani has recently been involved with Brevard Students for Change, a branch of the Youth Action Fund, a youth advocacy organization based in the Sunshine State. Earlier this month, Anjani, the group’s campaign advisor, helped organize a rally against the book ban at Brevard Public Schools ahead of the Feb. 6 board meeting.
The group works to hold school boards accountable and mobilize students to make their voices heard about their right to education, she said.
“Our goal is to help students take action against far-right influence in their schools,” she said.
More broadly, she works with the Youth Action Fund to speak out about laws that impact LGBTQ youth and other marginalized groups. And they are currently working with March for Our Lives, an anti-gun violence student-led group formed in the wake of the Parkland shooting, to plan a statewide rally to protest looser gun laws. There is.
She is also involved with the Brevard Democratic Party and previously served as chair of the High School Democratic Asian American Caucus, where she supported the campaigns of Asian American candidates and policies that benefit Asian Americans. .
Pam Castellana, chairwoman of the Brevard Democratic Party, met Anjani through the League of Women Voters. Castellana sees her as a “powerful example of what the next generation can do.”
“Her brilliance is matched only by her compassion and desire to uplift others,” Castellana said. “I can’t wait to see what kind of impact she will continue to have on the world.”
Although Anjani’s involvement in multiple causes has been meaningful to her, she said her support has come at a cost in some areas.
“Recently, as I’ve been working on academic censorship, I’ve noticed that some people aren’t as supportive of mental health activism,” Anjani said. “It’s sad that we live in a world where students have to do so much activism just to get elected officials to understand.”
Future Plans
Anjani is scheduled to graduate from West Shore this spring. She hasn’t decided where she will go to college yet, but she thinks she would like to do something in the field of public policy. She will likely pursue a double major in public policy and psychology or political science, she said.
Although she won’t be in Brevard, she plans to continue the work of Minds Without B0rders and further work to expand it as she and many members of the board navigate college life.
“Adjusting to college is a huge mental health stressor,” she says. “I’m going to keep doing this. I want to keep doing this as long as I can because this is something that should keep going.”
Finch Walker is an education reporter for Florida Today.Contact Walker 321-290-4744 or fwalker@floridatoday.com. X: @_finch walker
